trip's map - 45k
Ron Karpel, Nancy Fitzsimmons; Pyramid Peak: Jan 16-17 1998,
A day earlier or a day later, this trip wouldn't have happened. But
Palmer Dyal skillfully planned the trip so we could climb the peak during
the few nice hours between two major storms. This trip started in a heavy
drizzle on the tail end of one weather system, and ended as a new storm
starting to dump its load of fresh snow. A few hours later, both highway
80 and 50 were closed.
We started from the Twin Bridges trail head and followed the summer
trail, now buried under a couple feet of snow, for about 1/4 of a mile.
Then we turned sharply left and started to climb straight up the ridge.
It was steep, but never more then 30 degree's, so avalanche danger was
minimal. The snow condition made the climb slow, as we took turns breaking
trail.
We reached the camp location at 3:00pm at 8000 ft. on a wide flat area
of the main ridge. The drizzle which was heavy most of the climb up, had
stopped, and allowed us to build camp and cook dinner. By 7:00 PM the sky
had cleared, and we were able to see the ridges around us under the star
light.
The clear sky made for a cool night, and by morning, the snow was frozen
solid. This made for ideal conditions for climbing the peak. We used snow
shows at the beginning, and switched to crampons for the final assault
of the summit ridge. As Palmer told us ahead of time, ice axes were not
needed. The relative low angle of the ridge and the rock hard snow
made the summit climb simple with just crampons. Everybody summitted.
The sky was darkening, and the wind was increasing steadily ahead of
the new storm. And by the time we reached the summit it was blowing hard
enough to knock us down to the ground (the snow really). We spent
little time on the summit and started down. We broke camp, and just as
we were all packed up and ready to go, it started to snow. By the
time we got to the trailhead, it was a downpour.
Participants: Palmer Dyal (leader), Nancy Fitzsimmons, Dee Booth, Terry
Halpin, Ron Karpel, Scott Kreider, Nathaniel McKitterick, Andrei Peters,
Michael Ryan, Steve Richardson, Ahmad Zandi.
This was the first trip for me this winter that didn't get canceled
due to weather.
